


mind games

by Wagandea



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Bottom Erik Lehnsherr, Coercion, Dubious Consent, M/M, Manipulative Charles, Mind Manipulation, Top Charles Xavier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 12:16:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17059622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wagandea/pseuds/Wagandea
Summary: "Kiss me," Charles says.





	mind games

                   i.

“Kiss me,” Charles says, and it _isn’t_ a command, or it isn’t phrased like one, but Erik does it anyway. That first time is an accident, but somewhere along the way it stops being one, somewhere between Erik’s too compliant mouth and the way his breath hitches when Charles winds his fingers too tightly in his hair. What will he take? Everything. The things Erik will give and the things he won’t.

Then--then Erik pulls back, slipping through Charles’ grasp like sand between his fingers. His lips are parted, brow furrowed, confused. _I don’t know why I did that._  It’s flat, uncomprehending, and Charles reaches out to smooth the thought over.

He smiles, guileless and bright, and cards his fingers through Erik’s hair. With a little laugh he smooths over the part of Erik that feels _weird_ about that, too.

Erik apologizes, and that’s just a little strange, because Charles had told him to, he’d said that _out loud._  Erik’s thoughts are a panicked mess when Charles lets him go with a faltering smile, a forced “ _oh, don’t worry about it, it must have been an impulse thing, I understand._ ” They don’t talk about it. For days, Erik watches him from across the mansion and wonders _why._  He’s searching for a reasoning for his own actions, not Charles’, and it leaves Charles feeling unwanted, hollow.

 

                   ii.

“Kiss me.” He’s drunk this time, in their tiny hotel room on that cross country trip, and Charles has always been so _sloppy_ with his telepathy when he’s drunk. Erik has been projecting hesitation at him all evening, a nervous flutter of wanting something but not wanting to do anything about it. There’s something to be said here about taking things Charles is not owed or permitted, something about consent, but he’s _drunk_ and it’s just a kiss, just a little cheeky request Erik doesn’t have to obey. It’s just that until it isn’t.

Charles falls back onto the bed with Erik on top of him _apologizing_ in his head over and over again, and that dampens the impact of the kiss, really. There’s a repeat performance of confusion, _I don’t know why I did that,_  but Charles is too drunk to care (it’s an excuse, he can use it as an excuse) and kisses back with a viciousness that prevents Erik from getting a word in edgewise. Charles has Erik’s shirt fisted in his hands and Erik is _shaking_ and Charles ignores it until he can’t anymore, until Erik has his knees on either side of Charles’ hips and his hand over Charles’ mouth.

It isn’t predatory, it isn’t him trying to take charge, it isn’t even particularly sexual. And that’s-- _fine._  Charles doesn’t like being pinned down anyway, doesn’t enjoy the loss of control. Erik is _still_ trying to take agency from him. “ _Charles, we can’t. You’re drunk._ ”

 _Oh, darling,_ Charles sends back to him, and Erik flinches at the projection into his mind, _I’m fair game so long as I’m not too drunk to get it up._ It isn’t a suggestion Erik finds _comforting,_  but Charles doesn’t care about that, doesn’t care about anything except the way Erik swears in German and then Charles has him on his back, has him rolling over to let Charles fuck him--

And if Erik needs a little push to get there, and another in the morning to assuage his misplaced sense of guilt, well, Charles is more than willing to provide it with a discreet tap to his temple. ( _Erik,_  Charles reminds himself, was the one who packed vaseline, and he certainly hadn’t been thinking about fucking anyone else on their trip. This should not be all it takes to satisfy Charles’ own conscience.)

 

                   iii.

“Kiss me,” Charles says, and he’s still drunk but it’s no longer ‘62. Erik is always more resistant in these fantasies, these imitations of the truth. It says more about the things Charles wants than it does about Erik, because _Erik_ might as well be dead for all he matters in this. Erik might as well be dead, already buried under the ground of the Pentagon in his concrete prison.

Charles is angry. Charles is lonely.

In the projection, Erik doesn’t kiss him sweetly. He has his knees on either side of Charles’ hips (it’s a little funny--his legs never seem important, not in this one and not in others, he might as well not move them at all), and Charles has to force his head down, hand tight in his hair. Erik’s face is lined with age and sorrow. Even like this, Charles is very aware of who he is, of who Erik is. The fondness of ‘62 is gone, and on the worst days of ‘73, Charles thinks he likes it better that way.

 _Kiss me,_ Charles says, and Erik asks, tight-lipped and disgusted: “Are you going to force me, Charles?”

Charles is too drunk to get off properly but he stays half hard for a long time, hand wrapped around his cock with too little intent, caught up in the projection.

 

                   iv.

“Kiss me.” It’s ‘83 and the thing is practiced, it feels like a routine, but only for one of them. The scene is sandwiched between days of rebuilding the mansion. It’s fitting. Erik can’t leave and Erik didn’t want to share the bed in the guesthouse with him. Charles, despite his instinct to reach out and smooth the thoughts over, doesn’t blame him for it.

“You’ve been drinking, Charles,” and _that’s_ the understatement of the century. Charles has been drinking since Oxford, or at least since ‘62, the mansion after Cuba. Erik’s voice has a rough quality to it in the dark, hoarse and desperate. They’ve never been desperate for the same thing, but Charles can pretend. “Sleep it off.”

“Please?” Charles asks weakly, and it’s deceptively pathetic. Something to feel sorry for.

Erik does feel sorry, when he kisses Charles like a compulsion and wishes he hadn’t done it. Erik feels as though he’s taking advantage of Charles, of course he does. Charles feels it acutely, sharp as a knife’s edge, and wonders if it’s Erik’s torment he’s getting off on, or his own.

It’s Erik’s, Charles decides in the morning as he’s subjected to the feedback of Erik’s hesitation, the want to reach for the helmet. But he never does reach for it, even if he does begin to avoid Charles at the first sight of a bottle.

Erik’s interest in self preservation is winning over his concern; or else he keeps his distance under the illusion of it being for _Charles_ ’ sake, thinks he can’t be trusted with poor drunk old Professor Xavier. The specifics don’t matter, and Charles doesn’t care enough for them to press.

Erik doesn’t suspect a thing, but sometimes Charles thinks it would be easier if he did.

 

                   v.

“Kiss me goodnight?” and Charles’ new bedroom is too big and too cold for one person, but Erik stands in the doorway hesitant to cross over the threshold. It’s a safe distance, Charles thinks, and he should feel guilty that Erik is under the impression he needs that. He doesn’t; if only because all the distance in the world won’t make a difference in the end. For all Erik is frightened of Charles’ powers, he’s never understood the scope of them.

(Charles forgets, sometimes, that the first time had been an accident. The entire affair, after all, is clouded in a haze of alcohol Charles seldom wants to emerge from. Perhaps it makes the thing more palatable.)

Erik doesn’t want to. He stands at the doorway with an expression harsh and closed-off, and the lines on his face look as though they’re carved from stone. “Goodnight, Charles.” He is tired, and is growing old, and has come to understand what this means.

So Charles lets him go. A show of mercy doesn’t make Charles feel as though he has lost anything; rather, it makes him feel powerful.

He isn’t sure when he came to enjoy the idea of Erik being powerless, but alone after half a bottle he concludes it must have been in ‘62.

(Two doors down, Erik lays in bed and touches himself, his whole body tensed up, too exhausted to even enjoy the orgasm he finally manages to wring from himself. His body has been working against him for a long time. Charles cannot be entirely certain this isn’t his fault.)

 

                   vi.

“Tell me to kiss you.” Erik’s voice is hoarse in the dark. It’s quiet, it trembles with the force of a man who is not permitted to show weakness. He lays next to Charles but won’t touch him and it’s no small feat of self restraint; Erik is wound tight, so tense he might break, but Charles is beginning to understand that Erik couldn’t touch him even if he wanted to. Not without something, a push, a suggestion…

“You want--” But Charles doesn’t know how to say it out loud, he doesn’t. He twists around awkwardly, props himself up on his elbows. For once he’s the uneasy one; feels caught. He can’t see Erik’s face. Charles speaks with the same deceptive softness that makes everyone else write him off as weak-willed and kind-hearted. Erik knows him better. Erik has always known him better. Charles has forgotten this. “Erik, it’s alright to want for things.” Gentle, patient, like speaking with one of his troubled students. The discordant notes of Erik’s thoughts spike in irritation.

(What Charles does not remember, from those nights in ‘62: Erik projecting hesitance not because he is unsure of what he wants, but because he is unsure of what is allowed, what he may permit himself. How he had made himself sick with it, how Charles’ fantasies were never entirely his own because the bleedthrough on those nights they both woke half hard resembled everything that came after. Erik under him or Erik on his knees, with a firm pull at the back of his head to ensure he can’t leave. To ensure an absence of agency.)

“ _Charles._ ”

He does not feel powerful any longer, but reaches for Erik anyway. “Come here,” he murmurs, and feels the tension of Erik’s thoughts unravel as soon as the suggestion takes hold; though in that dark room Erik’s guilt still remains.

**Author's Note:**

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